5 must-see Wisconsin state parks to visit this fall

Barry Adams, Wisconsin State Journal

Maybe summer slipped away with music, food and beer festivals, Milwaukee Brewers winning streaks or a boatload of activities with the kids and you failed to hit up one of Wisconsin’s 50 state parks.

Fortunately, there are several offerings within a two-hour drive or less that can make for an ideal day trip or a short and quick weekend getaway this fall.

But for this exercise, let’s take two of the big ones off the table.

There’s tons to love about Devil’s Lake State Park near Baraboo and Gov. Dodge State Park north of Dodgeville. They both offer fishing and swimming, hiking and beautiful rock outcroppings, have scores of campsites and are both about an hour drive from Capitol Square.

They also are two of the busiest.

So, as the park system celebrates its 125th year, here are five state parks that you most likely have heard of but maybe haven’t had the chance yet to visit. And if you have, you already know why you need to return.

Tower Hill State Park

While many headed this way are in pursuit of Frank Lloyd Wright architecture or Shakespeare at American Players Theatre, the Spring Green area also has one of the smallest state parks in Wisconsin, but one loaded with history.

And if you like baking, bring your flour, eggs and yeast or pizza ingredients so you can use the restored wood-fired brick oven on the campground.

Believed to be a remnant from a Unitarian camp that closed in the early 1900s, the oven was restored in 2016 and is at site 12 in the 77-acre park’s campground.

Tower Hill is perhaps best known for the tower that was used from the 1830s to 1860 to make lead shot. The village of Helena was here for a time until it was bypassed by the railroad in the 1850s.

But from 1889 to 1918, the area that is now the park was home to the Tower Hill Pleasure Company, a retreat founded by the Rev. Jenkin Lloyd Jones. The property included cottages, a barn, library and dining hall. After Jones died in 1922, his widow donated the land to the state.

But don’t forget the bug spray. The park is on a backwater of the Lower Wisconsin State Riverway.

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